


They say times are hard for dreamers

by deathsteel



Series: One-Shots, Tumblr Prompts, and Unrelated Crap [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dean-Centric, Ep: I'm No Angel fix-it, M/M, its a clipshow, s9ep3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsteel/pseuds/deathsteel
Summary: A fix-it drabble for Episode 3 of Season 9 when Dean kicks Cas out of the bunker because Ezekiel tells him to. That shit fucked me up bro.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: One-Shots, Tumblr Prompts, and Unrelated Crap [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/69894
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	They say times are hard for dreamers

Dean tries to lighten the mood on the drive over to Garth’s by reminiscing. He does it just as much to keep himself from crying and begging Cas to stay as he does to keep himself from yelling and screaming and cursing God about how unfair all of this is. The one time he can help Cas, return the countless favors that the fallen angel has done for him by giving him a home and a family to replace the one that he had lost because of Dean, and he couldn’t because a jumped up angel-doctor wannabe had hijacked his brother’s body.

So he talks, because memories are all he can offer the other man besides the guns and food and the couple of changes of his own clothes that Dean had shoved into an army duffle before bustling Cas out of the bunker all while Zeke stood over them, watching their progress wearing Sam’s face that had no trace of his brother in it. He had shot the angel a dirty look on their way out of the door, a part of his mind telling him that this was fifty shades of fucked up, but really what choice did he have? It was Cas or Sam and at least Cas stood a chance of staying alive on his own, unlike his brother who needed the angel holing up inside of him to get better.

He jokes about when they first met, him trying to stab Castiel in the chest and the dumbstruck look on Bobby’s face when the older man had realized that angels were real even though Dean hadn’t been ready to admit that there might be something out there that might fight on his side for once. He tells Cas about the version of himself that he met in 2014, when the devil was winning and future Dean had lost all hope that anyone would have his back, but for some reason Cas still did even though he was human and fragile and broken. Dean tells Cas that anything offered to him in pill form is not to be trusted, he says this seriously and makes the other man repeat it before going back to more light-hearted stuff.

Dean talks about all of the little human things that Cas always gets wrong, like body space and the staring and just his general lack of knowledge about popular culture that Dean had already been plotting how he would remedy when Cas told him over the phone that he had fallen, was human now and had to deal with things like hunger and thirst and desire. He gets a half-hearted chuckle from the other man when he compliments the angel for finally beginning to understand sarcasm and makes the comment that it probably took going crazy and fighting his way across Purgatory and being brainwashed before it all clicked, but Cas gets it now, he just needs to learn how to curse better.

Dean doesn’t talk about himself or how he spent every night in Purgatory and after praying that the angel would come back to him, finally taking it seriously with bent knees and a bowed head and clasped hands after years of making light of the way he communicated with Cas in ways that Sam had never been able to. He doesn’t talk about their profound bond, because there is one even though he had never admitted it to anyone before, always shrugging it off and ignoring the pointed looks that his brother and Bobby gave him anytime Cas was mentioned. He doesn’t talk about how all he wanted to do when he found Cas in the twilight hell of Purgatory was breathe him in and thank him for saving him again and finally tell him everything he had realized during his time fighting his way towards the angel with Benny.

He sticks to the funny stuff that’s happened to them instead, even though there isn’t much. The time that Cas suddenly decided he wanted to be a hunter in what was probably the strangest, most surreal case of their lives; the one with that guy who turned stuff into cartoons and Dean had been seriously concerned just for a second that his heart would beat out of his chest when he watched the angel lift up that anvil off of what was left of the security guard at the bank. But then Cas had disappeared again, turning up just to kill Samandriel and making Dean question everything he knew about the angel all over again.

Once he runs out of memories they share, he starts talking about the stuff that Cas missed. About Sam being afraid of clowns and cupcakes that have tiny beating hearts in them and the alternate universe version of the angel who Dean had liked, but been so freaked out when he saw him dead in that dirty alleyway that he had had nightmares for weeks about Cas being stabbed to death. He shakes away the tears that well-up when he remembers that that actually happened very recently and starts to panic when the realization hits him that maybe Cas won’t be able to handle being on his own after all. He was only human for like three days before a baddie managed to track him down and kill him, fuck maybe this all was a bad idea.

But he doesn’t say that because Cas has gotten quiet again and is staring at him with that same sad puppy dog look that he had in the bunker, he must have picked that shit up from Sam because Dean knows that his own face just closes up and gets angry looking when he is sad. A glance in the rearview mirror tells him that that’s exactly how it looks right now so he just clears his throat and keeps talking, the words and stories pouring out unasked for by the man beside him but Cas isn’t stopping him either so he keeps going.

“And then there was Aaron and the Nazis, he was my gay thing. That dude was a total stoner; I mean who just gets a present from their granddad only to use it to toke up later? He and Andy Gallagher probably would’ve gotten along like gang-busters.”

Cas makes a strangled sounding noise beside him, somewhere between a sob and a laugh that has Dean looking over to see the other man covering his mouth with his hand and staring resolutely out the passenger side window of the Impala with glassy eyes. The darkened landscape passes by, illuminated briefly in the glow of the vehicle’s headlights before its whizzed by lost somewhere in the miles that separate the bunker from Garth’s latest headquarters.

“Hey Cas,” Dean asks glancing back at the empty stretch of straight high way laid out before them, not a hotel or anything in sight that they could stop at for the night. “You alright, man?”

“Is that why you’re sending me away?” Castiel asks softly, his voice sounding small and desperate, lost somewhere in the baggy olive green jacket Dean had given him to replace the dirty maroon hoodie he had been wearing for god knows how long, probably since he fell. “I don’t make you happy anymore?”

“What are you talking about, dude?”

“I have learned during my short time being human that happiness is something that a lot of people search for. They look for it in all kinds of places. Some of the men I stayed with under the bridge and at the shelter had found it with alcohol and other substances—“

“Which you are not to touch, you hear me?” Dean interrupts brusquely, pointing a finger at the fallen angel beside him like he was lecturing a teenager.

“Yes, Dean you have made it very clear how you feel about those things. As I was saying, there are a lot of places that people look for happiness, most of them are the wrong place. April was the wrong place for me to try to find it, but I was lonely and lost and she was so kind to me, Dean, I had no one else to turn to. I understand now why you have tried to find affection and solace in so many different partners, you were seeking comfort when you didn’t think you could find it with anyone else. You have been betrayed by myself and Sam and everyone else close to you so many times that it is hard for you to trust others.”

“Is there a moral to this story, Cas? Because honestly I have no clue what you’re talking about? What does me being happy have to do with kicking you out of the bunker?” Dean asks, he can handle talking about feelings better now, but Cas sounds so desperately serious that it makes his stomach twist from all of the things he wants to say to the new human. About love and…love.

“Are you making me leave because you have found happiness with this other person? This Aaron?” Castiel asks, licking his lips nervously in a gesture that Dean has come to find is one of the other man’s new little human quirks. “Are you worried that my being around will be awkward for your partner?”

Cas can probably feel how chapped they are now, but Dean doubts that he knows what lip balm is. He makes a mental note to stop somewhere and pick some up for the other man at a gas station or something before they reach Garth’s house. Dean is so lost in thought that he doesn’t even answer Cas, thinking about what else the other man might need now that he is human; things that he had just forgotten about himself in his haste to get them out the door before Zeke took off somewhere with Sam’s body or overlooked because they were things that were obvious to him, deodorant and shampoo maybe some razors so that Cas could shave. Did he know how to shave? Maybe he could teach him if he had time before heading back to the bunker.

“If you have Dean, then I am glad for you. I know that our bond has never amounted to much more than me being able to sense when you were in trouble or hurt, hearing your prayers more clearly than others who have sought my assistance in the past. I know that it was never anything that could hope to mimic what you might find with another human, but I thought that at times it was happiness, maybe I was wrong.”

The new human is babbling and twisting his fingers into contorted knots that make him wince when he untangles them, picking at a stray thread on the borrowed jacket instead as Dean finally catches on to what he means and hurriedly pulls Baby to the side of the abandoned highway.

“Cas,” Dean says seriously, turning in his seat so that he can face the other man, clearing his throat awkwardly and wondering if this is actually the best time to be having this conversation. “When I said gay thing, I didn’t mean that Aaron was my…uh…partner or whatever. He was just this guy who I thought hit on me but didn’t, he didn’t make me happy. Not like you do.”

It isn’t going to change anything, Cas still can’t stay with him at the bunker regardless of whether the fallen angel cares about him in the same way or not; it is a risk that he can’t take since Zeke could still pretty much blackmail him with Sam’s life to do whatever he wanted. Fuck it, Cas is human now and maybe this is the thing that stops him from turning into that hippie, burn-out version of himself that Dean is scared of.

Castiel looks at him with a confused expression on his face, tilting his head slightly in that way that he hasn’t stopped doing even though his grace is powering some psychotic, power hungry angel’s spell somewhere. It is a gesture that is so unique to the other man that Dean knows he would recognize Cas no matter what vessel he is in, not that he can change his vessel anymore but the desire for the fucking wavelength of celestial intent that was actually the angel to look like anything other than Jimmy Novak had long ago faded.

He used to think it would be so much easier if Cas was in a girl’s body, he wouldn’t have had to deal with years of coming to terms with the fact that he was attracted to the angel only to realize that it was more than just attraction when he thought he had lost him in Purgatory. Now Dean is thankful that it has taken them this long to finally talk about it, yes, he mourned all of their wasted time. Time that they could have spent making memories that wouldn’t have ended up being discussed on this drive because they never would have had to take it in the first place, but he is very aware of the fact that when he first met Cas he wouldn’t have trusted that he deserved something as great as the love and adoration of an angel.

Dean slides across the seat slowly, thanking god or Metatron or whoever else it is that listens to prayers now that heaven has shut its pearly gates, that Cas has done nothing but pound it into his head for the last five years that he deserves this, he deserves to be happy and it isn’t selfish of him to do something for himself every once in a while. He puts a shaky hand over the one that Cas has griped onto the cuff of the olive jacket, the man’s blue eyes going wide when Dean had made the first move across the car towards him.

“Cas, I know that the last person who kissed you also killed you, but do you trust me?” Dean asks lowly, his eyes flicking to the other man’s lips and back up to take in the fallen angels’ barely there nod with a smirk.

“With my life, Dean.” Castiel replies seriously, his words being swallowed by the other man as Dean leans in to brush his lips softly over the chapped pink ones of his mortal, breakable, perfect human.

Dean knows that it isn’t going to change anything, finally kissing Castiel, but hell, it’s not like stranger things haven’t happened to him before.

**Author's Note:**

> Just retrieving some drabbles that I am proud(ish) of from my tumblr before moving on to updating WIPs. Comments appreciated.


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